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Maybe I’d pick up coffee and doughnuts en route to the office. Not as an apology—I had nothing to apologize for—but just to smooth the way.
Since the weather had cooled and today was for action, I pulled my hair into a knot and paired today’s tank with leggings and knee-high boots. The house was silent, so I went downstairs, checked the kitchen for something to drink. Found a copper canister labeledcoffee, but it was empty. I heard footsteps behind me and, given the lack of greeting, assumed it was Lulu or Alexei. “Do you know where he keeps the coffee?”
“He doesn’t have any coffee.”
I froze, every muscle tense, and then looked back.
Connor stood in the doorway in running shorts and nothing else, his body slicked with sweat. He’d probably gone for a run, and apparently without much clothing.
He walked to the fridge, took out a bottle of water, drank deeply, his eyes on me over the rim, and I couldn’t look away. There was something nearly palpable in the power that radiated around him. His body exceptional, from strong arms, muscular back, flat abdomen, to his smooth and muscled flank inscribed with a tattoo in elegant black capitals:Non ducor, duco.I’m not led; I lead.
The idea of it—the arrogance in it—flipped desire into anger again.
When he’d taken his fill, he put the bottle down, lifted an eyebrow. Expecting—no,demanding—that I make the first move. Concede the first thin sliver of ground.
Instead, I ignored it. “I’m on my way out.”
“You’re sneaking out.”
I lifted my brows at him. “I don’t need to sneak, as I’m not a prisoner here.”
He met my gaze with a stony stare of his own, but didn’t respond.
Even the monster was irritated, my muscles quivering as if it was stomping around inside. “I’m going to the OMB. I want to find out what they’ve learned about the notes, and Theo invited me to come by.”
“Do that,” he said. “I’ll be at the NAC building, because the AAM has taken up its position again to irritate my people.” There was an edge in his voice. I wasn’t the only one angry.
“They’re still there?”
“They left before dawn, returned. There was a very good fight inside the bar last night, so the Pack felt no need to start one outside with, and I’m quoting Eli here, ‘chalky vampires.’”
“I’ll deal with it,” I said, heading toward the door. I wasn’t sure what I’d do, but harassing the Pack was unacceptable.
Connor gripped my arm as I walked past. “I’ll take care of it. They think they can intimidate me or the Pack, they need to be corrected. It’s important that we, the Pack, send that particular signal. Maybe it’s important that I do it.”
I looked down at the fingers around my arm. “Are you looking for a fight here or there?”
“You tell me,” he said, eyes glittering.
I wanted to push his fingers off my arm, to rail at him for pushing me away. Even the monster was excited about the possibility. But I knew my anger—our anger—was just a symptom. So I took a breath, and opted for honesty.
“Did you not trust me enough to tell me you were moving?”
He stared at me with wide eyes, and I watched his anger drain into what looked like bafflement, then mortification. “Jesus, Lis. No. No.” But he crossed to the sink, braced his hands against it. Then he ran a hand through his hair, and I worked not to be distracted by the clench and release of muscle.
“After Minnesota,” he said, “and all the shit we went through, I considered taking a leave of absence. A sabbatical. I needed a break from the Pack.”
My brows lifted. “You did?”
He looked back. “Yeah. I thought about going to the desert. Live in the heat. Spend time in silence on the bike under an empty sky.”
“So, like most of your teenage years?” He’d frequently disappear for a few months at a time. Apparently most shifters did the same before taking on the obligations of adulthood.
He smiled a little. “Only two of them. I wanted all that because I was sick of the politics and the backstabbing. And you know what made me stay?”
I shook my head, even while my pulse quickened.
“You, Lis. You wouldn’t be happy out there, and it would have felt empty—and not the good kind of empty—without you.” He looked up. “So I decided to try a different way. A place where the Pack wouldn’t always be... underfoot. A place of my own.”
